The present invention relates to a boom arm or cantilever arrangement for swivelling elevator seating and reclining devices, such as bath tub seats and the like, comprising a substantially horizontally cantilevered support arm mounted on or in a swivelling elevator device and in which substantially vertical support arms for accommodating body support means, such as a seat or a reclining couch, are provided. The vertical support arms are adjustably fixable in clamping blocks which are, in turn, adjustably fixable on the boom arm.
Such swivelling elevator seat and reclining devices serve to transport, support and position patients and invalids and are commonly employed in installations for the rational care of patients. In bathing installations they permit the safe and comfortable transport of patients into and out of bath tubs adapted to the ergonomic requirements of nursing and therapy personnel and therefore not accessible to handicapped persons or invalids without assistance. Such bathtubs have differing widths and heights and also differ in the slope of their narrow ends.
Swivelling elevator seats of the type described are already known in which the boom arm or cantilever arrangement is welded up as a custom-tailored product from tubular and profiled components. The individual components are, for instance, mounted in templates and rigidly assembled in mutual relationship by welding.
Such means of construction are work-intensive and subject to the known disadvantages of welding technology. First a survey of the measurements required for each individual installation must be taken in detail and with great accuracy, since, due to the welded construction, a subsequent adaptation, for instance at installation time, is impossible or can only be done with the greatest difficulty. Qualified personnel well acquainted with the installation are therefore required for this survey. Furthermore, the investment in tooling and work for the dimensionally accurate welded construction of such a boom arm is considerable so that one can hardly speak of quick and economic assembly. In spite of this considerable effort, dimensional agreement between the boom arm and the bathing installation is not sufficiently certain. This is because a boom arm is a rigid integral unit and errors in the initial dimensional survey cannot be corrected later. Warping or deformation of the structure caused by thermal stresses cannot always be fully corrected by cold or hot forming adjustments. In either case there is no alternative but to replace the faulty boom arm with a new assembly.
In boom arms of this type, structural components are required having different shapes and dimensions for each installation. The employment of mass-produced components that could be used for a wide range of installations in the form of identical standard parts is in general impossible. This makes the boom arm more expensive and the provision of replacement parts problematic.
A further disadvantage of such welded constructions is the fact that they are custom-tailored and therefore cannot be used for different bathtubs having different heights and widths. It is therefore impossible to adapt them to new conditions when a bathtub is replaced or other constructional changes are made. There is also no opportunity for quickly and easily replacing components subject to rapid wear.